Magic and Technology in Early Modern Europe
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, of rare books and , manuscripts in science and technology originally do- ANTHONY GRAFTON : nated by the Burndy Library to the You have published a great deal on a wide Smithsonian Institution Libraries form range of topics. What, in general terms, the core of the Dibner Library’s collec- v z are the questions that interest you? tion. Over the years, the book collection MAGIC AND What really interests me is how peo- has been supplemented by the Smithsonian’s own holdings ple do things. I see that as the ques- and gifts from individuals and institutions, and now numbers TECHNOLOGY tion that unifies my apparently completely disparate inves- some , rare books. The Dibner Library’s holdings are tigations of topics in Antiquity, in the Renaissance, in the contained within and searchable via the Smithsonian Insti- IN EARLY Baroque, and in the modern age. More specifically, I’ve al- tution Libraries’ online catalog, . ways been interested in how scholars did things in the past: how scholars studied documents, how they edited them, MODERN EUROPE how they turned them into historical narratives and other The most widely recognized portion of the Dibner Library kinds of publication; and I have a strong interest in similar are the “Heralds of Science,” works selected by Bern uuuuuuu questions about ancient and early modern scientists. I’m al- Dibner as the most significant titles in the formation and ways less interested in intellectuals’ grand theses—Is Prov- development of Western science and technology. They idence ruling world history?—than I am in asking, What were presented in his classic book, Heralds of Science (Nor- DIBNER LIBRARY LECTURE kind of methods did they use? How do we make sense of those methods historically? What sense did they make at walk, Conn.: Burndy Library, ; reprinted in by , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; revised edition in by the time? What work did those methods do that others Burndy Library and Washington, DC: Smithsonian Insti- wouldn’t have? It’s in pursuit of that kind of information tution). Dibner came up with eleven general categories and that I’ve studied how people read books, how people briefly described his choices of the greatest works that rep- wrote footnotes, how people built libraries. To answer resented those disciplines. The Smithsonian Institution Li- these questions I’ve found myself doing lots of interdisci- braries is in the process of constructing a web page that will plinary work. Looking at archives, recreating institutions, describe the Heralds in greater detail. The works described reassembling networks of individuals who collaborated in Heralds of Science continue to stand as major milestones with one another. Doing the same kinds of things you in the history of science and technology. The publication would do to answer pretty much any historical question. is frequently cited in rare book catalogs (a particular vol- To view the entire transcript of this interview, go online to: ume is always referred to by its Heralds number) and is a http://his.princeton.edu/people/e52/anthony_grafton_inte tribute to the vision of Bern Dibner. .html , of rare books and , manuscripts in science and technology originally do- ANTHONY GRAFTON : nated by the Burndy Library to the You have published a great deal on a wide Smithsonian Institution Libraries form range of topics. What, in general terms, the core of the Dibner Library’s collec- v z are the questions that interest you? tion. Over the years, the book collection MAGIC AND What really interests me is how peo- has been supplemented by the Smithsonian’s own holdings ple do things. I see that as the ques- and gifts from individuals and institutions, and now numbers TECHNOLOGY tion that unifies my apparently completely disparate inves- some , rare books. The Dibner Library’s holdings are tigations of topics in Antiquity, in the Renaissance, in the contained within and searchable via the Smithsonian Insti- IN EARLY Baroque, and in the modern age. More specifically, I’ve al- tution Libraries’ online catalog, . ways been interested in how scholars did things in the past: how scholars studied documents, how they edited them, MODERN EUROPE how they turned them into historical narratives and other The most widely recognized portion of the Dibner Library kinds of publication; and I have a strong interest in similar are the “Heralds of Science,” works selected by Bern uuuuuuu questions about ancient and early modern scientists. I’m al- Dibner as the most significant titles in the formation and ways less interested in intellectuals’ grand theses—Is Prov- development of Western science and technology. They idence ruling world history?—than I am in asking, What were presented in his classic book, Heralds of Science (Nor- DIBNER LIBRARY LECTURE kind of methods did they use? How do we make sense of those methods historically? What sense did they make at walk, Conn.: Burndy Library, ; reprinted in by , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; revised edition in by the time? What work did those methods do that others Burndy Library and Washington, DC: Smithsonian Insti- wouldn’t have? It’s in pursuit of that kind of information tution). Dibner came up with eleven general categories and that I’ve studied how people read books, how people briefly described his choices of the greatest works that rep- wrote footnotes, how people built libraries. To answer resented those disciplines. The Smithsonian Institution Li- these questions I’ve found myself doing lots of interdisci- braries is in the process of constructing a web page that will plinary work. Looking at archives, recreating institutions, describe the Heralds in greater detail. The works described reassembling networks of individuals who collaborated in Heralds of Science continue to stand as major milestones with one another. Doing the same kinds of things you in the history of science and technology. The publication would do to answer pretty much any historical question. is frequently cited in rare book catalogs (a particular vol- To view the entire transcript of this interview, go online to: ume is always referred to by its Heralds number) and is a http://his.princeton.edu/people/e52/anthony_grafton_inte tribute to the vision of Bern Dibner. .html MAGIC AND TECHNOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE * A85858585858585S yX Zu 67 yuMAGIC AND 67 yuTECHNOLOGY 67 yuIN EARLY 67 yuMODERN EUROPE 67 yu 67Anthony Grafton yu 67 yu , 67 yu_ 67 yu 67 yu 67 · yu 6S A7 ZitititititititX Published by Smithsonian Institution Libraries Washington, DC - Text Copyright © Anthony Grafton. All rights reserved. All images from the Smithsonian Libraries’ Dibner Library unless otherwise noted. A G is the Dodge Professor of History and Director of His- torical Studies at Princeton. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and studied for a brief period at University College, London. Joining the Princeton faculty in , his many honors include the Behrman Prize for Achievement in the Humanities at Princeton, a visiting professorship at the École Normale Supèrieure in Paris, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He has delivered the J.H. Gray Lectures at Cambridge, the E.A. Lowe Lectures in Paleography and Kindred Subjects at Oxford, the Rothschild Lecture in the History of Science at Harvard, and the Meyer Schapiro Lectures at Colum- bia University. From -, he served as Warburg Professor in Hamburg, Germany. Author or editor of fourteen books, including a major two-vol- ume study on Renaissance humanist Joseph Scaliger, Grafton focuses his scholarly attentions on the history of the classical tradition, particularly dur- ing the Renaissance. He also lectures on and writes about the history of sci- ence and the history of books and readers. Edited by Robert Kearns Designed and typeset by Marc Alain Meadows. Meadows Design Office, Inc., Washington, DC, www.mdomedia.com -- Grafton, Anthony. Magic and technology in early modern Europe / by Anthony Grafton.— st ed. p. cm.— (Dibner library lecture) Lecture held October, . Technology — Europe — History — Addresses, essays, lectures. Engi- neering — Europe — History — Addresses, essays, lectures. Technology — Philosophy — Addresses, essays, lectures. Magic — Europe — Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. II. Series. T.A.G '.'— dc MAGIC AND TECHNOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE FOREWORD R H’ Time Enough for Love, Lazarus Long, a continuously reju- venated man (hence his name) who lives from to , writes in his notebooks, “one man’s magic is another IIman’s engineering.” And so it was in early modern Europe, ac- cording to Anthony Grafton, who presented the twelfth Dibner Library Lecture on October , . In his lively and enter- taining presentation, Grafton showed how “the notion of a mathematical or artificial magic” rose from the ancient art of nat- ural magic, embodied in such things as prayers and talismans, to the complex optical, hydraulic and mechanical devices that “not only rivaled, but actually outdid, the creative powers of nature itself.” The machines and automata that emulated nature and the movement of living beings were so astonishing at first that the engineers had to seek independent authoritative testimony that the devices were the product of engineering skill, not occult practices. Anthony Grafton, the Dodge Professor of History and Di- rector of Historical Studies at Princeton University, has been dubbed “the Alchemist of Erudition” by the Chronicle of Higher Education for his ability to entice readers through dense subject matter with his sparkling prose. A regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and The Ameri- can Scholar, Grafton used the occasion of his Dibner Library Lec- ture to once again open the world of classical scholarship to the lay reader. I am especially pleased to present Professor Grafton’s essay in this series, because he vividly displays the reasons why the Smithsonian Libraries continues to promote the importance of historical study in the sciences.